The Jim Brown Jersey

[aeneas01]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

1) re: usage. without speaking for mark, i'll say that, for the most part, use is often qualified. championship use trumps regular season use and regular season use trumps practice use. simply put, i think collectors view many game-used items as tangible pieces of history and culture. to that end, the "provenance" of the use (where specifically the use came from) adds or detracts to the value/quality of a piece. it simply refers to the entire notion of what the piece has "seen"/been through that adds or detracts to it's historical and collectible value. relatively speaking and compared to the regular or post season, practices aren't of great significance so any wear achieved through them would be "inferior" to wear achieved through the more important regular post season. having a tear that occurred from brown half-heartedly slamming into a teammate during practice wouldn't be as interesting/valuable/historical as a tear that occurred from having that tear occur during a more significant event. it's one big reason, for example, why BP shirts go for so much less than actual gamers.

i guess i didn't make myself clear - can you tell i know squat about shirts? what i was getting was... let's say that on the way to the locker room, immediately following a super bowl win, mean joe greene tosses his shirt to a kid in exchange for a coke. it's later discovered that the shirt exhibits more than a few repairs which only adds to the mystique of mjg and the battles he had raged in this garment. would a collector really care if 6 of the 7 repairs were the result of camp or practice? as if there would be any real way of knowing? i wouldn't think so.

i've been thinking about this entire concept of promo shirts and i think it's an overly vague term that ought to be qualified...

i hear ya - just what the hobby needs is another term tossed around! but let's say that this type of jersey can't be style-matched to a game image as can the hall of fame jerseys. if this is the case, does the story behind the shirt really matter? perhaps it was purchased for his game use and he decided he just didn't like it, decided that he preferred the stouter jersey, and chose to wear the thing only during photo shoots because it was lightweight, breathed well and would be perfect for long photo sessions. if the jersey can't be linked to a style he was known to have worn in a game, the rest becomes academic i would think. you could claim that it was a "game issued" shirt - but i don't know how you could prove this anymore than you could prove it wasn't a salesman sample.

actually this sort of reminds me of those rams jerseys that surfaced for one year in the early 70s - blue jerseys with yellow numbers outlined in white which the rams had never worn before. all of the rams players posed individually in these jerseys for program photos etc. and they may have used them for one preseason game that year. whatever the case, these jerseys were never worn during the regular season nor were they ever heard from again. yet finding photos of rams posing in them is very easy. given their lack of use, could any of these shirts ever be held up as a quintessential example of a rams game used jersey? further, would it be fair to represent one as a game used jersey which, for example, merlin olsen wore during his most productive, pro bowl seasons?

3) as i understand it, when the brown jersey was consigned to REA it was owned by troy and dave. by all accounts, the jersey seems to have sold and is now being consigned to Mastro. i don't believe troy and dave own it anymore. of course i could be wrong but that's what it seems like at first glance to me.

gotcha and thanks for clearing this up - needless to say, in this case mears could clearly not be expected to mention their past ownership in this jersey in their "our items at auction" section.


...

[trsent]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

Joel
Folks want to discuss the Brown jersey and learn. Folks on this message board aren't going to drop 70Gs on any jersey.
Is this tit-for-tat the reason the so-called heavy-hitters don't post on this forum anymore? It's a turn off, man!
Dude started a whole new thread about this subject to bypass the useless drivel.
Do you really think Rudy misquoted you to look better in the industry? C'mon, man. I enjoy your posts and think you are the straw that stirs the drink...but who cares about "The Industry"?

You know, my favorite baseball player growing up was Thurman Munson (and Oscar Gamble for one year - 1977). Do you think he would be happy to see me being compared to Reggie Jackson?

As for Rudy's quote, I prefer to be fully quoted and not partially quoted out of context. Does that many any sense? Do I ever make any sense?

So, what you are saying is none of the people who are questioning the Jim Brown jersey, now the second time it is up for auction, are interested in buying the jersey? Even if it sells for less than the $70,000 it sold for last time? I do not understand, I thought often if people were questioning an item, they were interested in buying the item.

[both-teams-played-hard]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

How many of you with your questions have contacted Mastro to set up an appointment to view the jersey in person? If there is so much concern, I believe Mastro will let you view the item in person to make more assessments. If you are bidding on a $70,000 + jersey, wouldn't you make the trip to view the jersey being discussed?

...and while I am at it, the complete quote Rudy partially quotes me from reads: "Rudy generally appears to be a loud mouth collector who picks and chooses who he doesn't approve of in this industry and time and time again he complains about their business practices."

I do not understand why Rudy didn't use the full quote, only the part he thinks makes him look better in the industry. I would expect if I am going to be quoted, a full sentence would be used. I will add this full sentance to the bottom of all my future posts so it is clear.

Joel
Folks want to discuss the Brown jersey and learn. Folks on this message board aren't going to drop 70Gs on any jersey.
Is this tit-for-tat the reason the so-called heavy-hitters don't post on this forum anymore? It's a turn off, man!
Dude started a whole new thread about this subject to bypass the useless drivel.
Do you really think Rudy misquoted you to look better in the industry? C'mon, man. I enjoy your posts and think you are the straw that stirs the drink...but who cares about "The Industry"?

[trsent]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

How many of you with your questions have contacted Mastro to set up an appointment to view the jersey in person? If there is so much concern, I believe Mastro will let you view the item in person to make more assessments. If you are bidding on a $70,000 + jersey, wouldn't you make the trip to view the jersey being discussed?

...and while I am at it, the complete quote Rudy partially quotes me from reads: "Rudy generally appears to be a loud mouth collector who picks and chooses who he doesn't approve of in this industry and time and time again he complains about their business practices."

I do not understand why Rudy didn't use the full quote, only the part he thinks makes him look better in the industry. I would expect if I am going to be quoted, a full sentence would be used. I will add this full sentance to the bottom of all my future posts so it is clear.

[kingjammy24]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

1) re: usage. without speaking for mark, i'll say that, for the most part, use is often qualified. championship use trumps regular season use and regular season use trumps practice use. simply put, i think collectors view many game-used items as tangible pieces of history and culture. to that end, the "provenance" of the use (where specifically the use came from) adds or detracts to the value/quality of a piece. it simply refers to the entire notion of what the piece has "seen"/been through that adds or detracts to it's historical and collectible value. relatively speaking and compared to the regular or post season, practices aren't of great significance so any wear achieved through them would be "inferior" to wear achieved through the more important regular post season. having a tear that occurred from brown half-heartedly slamming into a teammate during practice wouldn't be as interesting/valuable/historical as a tear that occurred from having that tear occur during a more significant event. it's one big reason, for example, why BP shirts go for so much less than actual gamers.

2) i've been thinking about this entire concept of promo shirts and i think it's an overly vague term that ought to be qualified. at times, teams have ordered and made up shirts for the sole purpose of donating to charity. i imagine they've also had them made up as gifts for VIPs. i'm not sure how close these types of shirts would be to their real game-issued/used counterparts.
it's well-known that players trade shirts amongst each other and have done so for awhile. i think they have extra shirts made up for the sole purpose of trading without actually wearing these shirts. (not sure what the point of trading non-issued/non-worn shirts is). jeff scott posted an excellent article a long time ago that showed that many players were trading shirts that hadn't even really been "issued" per se much less worn. they'd simply been ordered from the factory for the sole purpose of trading. a 1994 griffey shirt i saw once came with a letter of provenance from a former major league pitcher who said that he obtained the shirt directly from griffey. i believe the jersey really did come from the pitcher, i believe the pitcher really did obtain the jersey from griffey, and i believe the pitcher really believed it was a griffey gamer. in 1994, griffey was one of the game's biggest stars and i'm sure he had dozens of players all around the league requested his shirts. to meet the demand, i'm sure he had boxes of shirts ordered for the sole purpose of giving away to fellow players. unfortunately, the '94 shirt was missing a nameplate. i doubt his real gamers were missing nameplates. it was also missing his extra length customization. i think griffey just ordered some very generic blanks and had them done up (at times, improperly) to give away. again, i'm not sure how close many of these "player traded" shirts are to their real game-issued/used counterparts.
then you've got these "photo shoot" shirts. i've mulled this over a little. wouldn't a team photo-shoot shirt most likely come from the team locker room and be a legit game-issue? that is, most of the teams, especially back then, were pretty cheap. why order a shirt strictly for photo-shoot purposes when you could kill 2 birds with 1 stone and order a legit game-issue shirt, use it for the photo-shoot, and then carry it over for actual game-use? i'm just thinking to all of the "staged" blue jays team photo-shoots i've seen and the jerseys and bats and gloves all appeared to be legit game-issues. of course, they might use the same bat for all of the player photos, for example, but chances are it's a legit game bat and not a retail bat simply ordered for the shoot. it's a whole different story if we're talking about a commercial photo shoot (eg: from a sponsor or manufacturer) but if we're talking about a team photo shoot, i'd think the jerseys shown would most likely be legit game-issues from the locker room as opposed to shirts ordered solely for the shoot. conversely, in many of the commercial shoots i've seen, the jerseys pictured are usually look like retail shirts and not legit-game issues. i think a debate involving the notion of "promo shirts" ought to delve deeper into the specific sort of promo in order to more accurately ascertain the nature of the shirt pictured. that said robert, i understand you're not calling the brown jersey a retail shirt. from what i understand, you're simply saying that its use might've been wholly relegated to "promo" purposes and that the photos troy used to establish it as an actual brown gamer weren't of brown actually in a game and therefore call into question whether such a lightly-used shirt might've actually seen genuine game action. makes sense to me. if every single actual game photo i saw of joe carter showed cleat marks on his bat and then i saw obvious team promo photo of him holding one of his bats without cleat marks, i think it'd be idiotic to infer from that promo photo that carter therefore didn't always rap his cleats against his bats in games. rather, the more likely story would be that carter was simply holding a new bat that hadn't yet seen game action.

3) as i understand it, when the brown jersey was consigned to REA it was owned by troy and dave. by all accounts, the jersey seems to have sold and is now being consigned to Mastro. i don't believe troy and dave own it anymore. of course i could be wrong but that's what it seems like at first glance to me.

rudy.

[trsent]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

btw i noticed that the mears doesn't mention the jim brown jersey in their "our items at auction" section. i'm confused - does this jersey belong to mears and/or an employee(s) of mears?



...

I thought MEARS sold the jersey through REA and now it is for sale at Mastro, no longer owner by a MEARS employee. I do not believe they have to track every item the sell and disclose when the previous buyer is selling the item at another auction.

That would take a lot of time and I believe MEARS and Mastro are not on working terms at this time.

[aeneas01]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

btw i noticed that the mears doesn't mention the jim brown jersey in their "our items at auction" section. i'm confused - does this jersey belong to mears and/or an employee(s) of mears?



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[aeneas01]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

Now to the issue that most of us durene collectors don't like to think about. Not only were jerseys often recycled back in those days (they still are today, by the way), many were later reused in practice. Did the repairs come from game action or did they come from practice/camp use? So the next time you get all excited about those 17 repairs on your favorite durene jersey, you might want to think about how many resulted from a couple of years of practice and summer camp!

mark, first let me say that i very much enjoy reading your insights into jerseys - actually your posts regarding this topic are what compelled me to start a dedicated thread given that i thought it would be a shame if the information you had shared, and the information others had shared, was banished to the back pages...

as far as repairs are concerned, and this is coming from someone that knows nothing about jerseys, why would it matter if the repairs were the result of camp or practice assuming that the jersey could be tied to the player in question? is this something that matters to jersey collectors? and aren't there many tell-tale signs which allow a jersey collector to determine whether or not a jersey was used by more than one player? tagging, uniform style, size, nameplate marks, number marks, etc.?

...

[cohibasmoker]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

So Matt, its been a few days since you posted the below statement and I am still awaiting your response to my initial question which was and still is: just how many Jets jerseys have you PERSOALLY inspected from the era you stated to substantiate the below statement. Mark Hayne gave a wonderful response and substantiated his claims and Troy stated that he personally handled over 300 jerseys but I am still wondering what your sampling was to make the below claim?

You wrote:

With that being said, I was a bit taken aback when you agreed with the authenticator that 90 plus percent of legitimate vintage game worn AFL or NFL jerseys will demonstrate no team instituted repairs. This is absolutely positively not the case with New York Jets jerseys from the AFL or early merger era. Even most common Jets player jerseys from that particular era more often than not (that could be anywhere from 51% to 49% and up) will exhibit use to include team repairs (of course obviously a players position, type of playing style, and amount of playing time will have a dynamic impact on percentages).

Was it
a) 1-5
b) 6-10
c) 11-20
d more than 20.

I am not trying to start an argument. I am just trying your understand how you came up with your percentages.


Jim

[aeneas01]

Re: The Jim Brown Jersey

1) light use: i think "light use" is entirely appropriate (ie: ideal) on some jerseys and wholly inappropriate on others. i passed on bidding on a certain jersey in a recent AMI auction because the wear was too heavy. that is, it seemed disproportionate to the time the player had spent on the team that season. in considering mark's rollie fingers shirt and this brown shirt, one would think that if light wear were appropriate for one jersey and not the other it'd be on the fingers and not on the brown. apparently, mears felt differently. mark hayne brought up the fact that apparently older football shirts were able to take more a beating. i'd think the brown shirt would still show something though? for a shirt of this magnitude, now offered from 2 premier auction houses, both descriptions have only mentioned the crotch piece wear.

2) from the REA description: "The offered jersey is not only the first Jim Brown game jersey we have ever seen.. but is also the only example ever seen by MEARS or documented in the MEARS population report...This is the only documented Jim Brown jersey known to date"

the first jim brown shirt MEARS has ever seen and noone from MEARS spoke to the Football HOF, who have 3 in their possession? this strikes me as really, really odd. a $70k shirt and a phone call can't be made to an institution that has 3 of what you have none of? wierd, wacky stuff as johnny c. would say.

3) promo items and salesman's samples have long posed concerns for collectors of all niches. i'm not sure how king o'shea worked back in the day but i'm curious if the promo item route was explored and if so, what sorts of conclusions were reached. it seems saleman's samples would be most common around the time that a given team is either undergoing a redesign or entertaining the notion of changing from it's current supplier. in 1996, the jays gave russell a try for their home jerseys from their main supplier wilson who'd they'd been using since 1977. i imagine around '96, russell made a few samples that led to wooing the jays away from wilson.
and of course, teams have been known to make up promo shirts for things like photo shoots and charity donations. not sure how common that was with the browns in the 60s.

rudy.

i agree - given the significance of this piece i would think the hof might have been approached. not only does the hall have 3 jb gamers but they also have a tremendous inventory of jerseys from this era. of course the hall's opinion would not be the final word as far as the jersey's authenticity is concerned but i would think that it would certainly be a tremendous resource - a resource worth mentioning.

yesterday i emailed troy asking him what photos he had used as part of his authentication process given that i had not been able to find any photos or film footage showing brown wearing this particular type of jersey in an actual game - the only images i could find were of the "photo shoot" variety. i naturally assumed that troy/mears had in their possession photos of brown actually wearing this type of jersey in a game - especially considering troy had stated "I have 4 or 5 crystal clear image of Jim Brown wearing the tear away style jerseys."

troy's response to my email was short and sweet - he simply stated that all of his references were included in his article. when i went to the mears site to check out his article, i found that it could only be accessed by paid subscribers.

fortunately i was able to find someone that could help me out, someone that could pass along what troy had published in this article and, as it turns out, the "crystal clear" images troy had been referring to are all "photo shoot" images, no game photos in the bunch.

in short, it appears that this jersey has only been matched to publicity/promo photos. unlike the jim brown gamers found at the hall of fame which can be easily be style-matched to actual game photos, this jersey appears to be one that can only be style-matched to "photo shoot" images. if this is the case, does the jersey's "light usage" take on a completely different meaning? further, if this is the case would mears be forced to mention that the jersey could not be conclusively style-matched as far as game use is concerned?

hopefully troy simply overlooked including game photos of brown sporting this sort of style when he put together his article, hopefully he does have game photos supporting his position. i would think this would be rather important.

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[aeneas01]

given the potential significance of the jim brown jersey currently listed at mastro, i thought it would make sense to create a dedicated thread to discuss this item. further, i believe that the highly educational information already posted about this jersey (and game used jerseys in general) by very knowledgeable guu forum members such as g1x, nyjetsfan14, kingjammy24, rkgibson, cohibasmoker, etc. runs the risk of being lost or overlooked if not "extracted" from the "NFL jerseys in the next Mastro auction" thread. as such, in order, here are the posts from the aforementioned thread that pertain only to the brown jersey (as opposed to the posts debating mears's business model).

Number9
Wow, I'm not much of an NFL collector, would like to add more to the few I have, but have everyone seen the lots in the next Mastro auction? Has to be the largest offering of old NFL jerseys I have seen. I hate auctions, but if you like looking at football jerseys you have to check this stuff out:

beantown
Yes, some nice jerseys! The Jim Brown one looked familiar to me....I believe it's the same one... http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/...2008/1524.html I wonder why the winning bidder would consign so quickly? You certaintly don't see Jim Brown game used jerseys everyday!!!

scottanservitz
Man oh man! That Brown jersey is my GRAIL! I fell just $69K short. What a joy just to see it. Nuff said! Scott

CollectGU
A few observations on the Jim Brown. Anyone else find it amazing that a Jim Brown from this era has no team repairs or any substantial hit marks considering they didn't change jerseys everyday back then and I wouldn't exactly call Brown a finesse runner trying to avoid the hits. Also, It is the light weight tear away style so that would make it even more susceptible to rips...Also Jim Brown signed it "game jersey" (not "game worn") at a paid autograph show 40 years after he wore it and not when it came off his back. Regards, Dave

beantown
Yes, I've thought about all the things you brought up...has anyone ever seen a Jim Brown jersey that was not a tear away and how much wear/repairs it had?

mvandor
Re: the Brown, yes, it's hard to imagine a Brown not being pounded, even if he was wearig a new one in his final game and this is it. And if I recall correctly, hasn't Bushing left authenticating at MEARS because he took too much justified heat for authenticating his own stuff and flipping it?

troy (per trsent)
There has been some discussion on game used forum with respects to the Jim Brown jersey which was bought and auctioned in the spring 2008 REA auction and is now available in the current Mastro Net auctions. There has been some speculation and statement of facts that are just plain inaccurate and mischaracterizes Dave Bushing and his involvement in the jersey. Although Dave Bushing was in charge of the marketing of this jersey, I authored both the MEARS LOO and the supporting article. Yes, an A10 grade was given, but the jersey and its merits were carefully chronicled in the detailed MEARS LOO and had nothing to do with Bushings ownership. The history, worksheet, and final LOO along with the detailed step by step process was made available to all bidders. Some criticism of tear away materials and the degree of use was openly debated by some on the GUF, this is a good thing. You do not have to agree with our findings or grade, but at least we offered a detailed, transparent methodology of our procedures which allowed you make your own final decision.

At the time of the sale, I published an article on the MEARS website addressing the jersey. Members can view the story at:

(Link removed as it points to an article only visible by MEARS members)

Regarding the origin and history of the jersey, Dave Bushing and I purchased this item at the show at the 2007 National Convention in Cleveland. This fact was presented by Rob Lifson in his catalog and I personally spoke with the current owner about our ownership.

Part of the reason the jersey obtained a high grade was due to the fact the seller of the item was offering items directly from the estate of a long time Browns employee. Included amongst his historic offerings were photographs from the 1946 AAFC team, Championship Browns footballs, correspondence, and this Jim Brown jersey. The memorabilia along with this Jim Brown jersey were offered for public viewing for the very first time at this show. The jersey was fresh and unmarketed in the hobby. Dave Bushings ownership of the jersey had nothing to do with the assigned grade.

I addressed the issue of the game wear both in the MEARS LOO and in the article.

It is often noted that a jersey has to exhibit team repairs to be considered heavily worn. This is not a universal truth and wear can manifest itself in additional visible manners. For example, examine the area of the crotch piece of this jersey. Along the button opening reinforced stitching, you can see areas of fraying. This was caused from the buttoning and unbuttoning of the piece. The game wear is visible when examining the stress and contact marks found on the fabric. This is especially visible when examining the area of the numeral surfaces. The use may be considered light by some when comparing the fabric to a dureene example with visible team repairs, but close examination reveals wear to the overall areas of the fabric of the body shell, crotch piece and numerals.

Over the past 3 years, I have personally handled nearly 300 game used NFL jerseys. I have purchased many of them on Ebay, dealers, and game used forum members. One of the key components I have noticed was the absence of team repairs. Most of these jerseys were of common players. They were purchased with the intentions to obtain fabric samples and color templates for the MEARS archives. After each jersey was archived, many were sold.

By handling such a large random sample, I was able to empirically illustrate that NFL jerseys would have medium to heavy game wear, without team repairs. Some jerseys were found to have team repairs, but I would estimate that less than 10% of the jerseys were found with team repairs. Therefore, with the aid of actual examples, I was able to document that game worn jerseys of common players were found in high percentages (90%) to not have team repairs.

A counter argument is that common players are not superstars, nor running backs, and common players should not have the same amount of game wear as a running back of Brown's calibre. Many of the samples that we examined were of everyday starting lineman, considered common players by collectors standards. These lineman jerseys were worn in every down, yet did not have repairs. It is also interesting to note that on several instances, MEARS issued unable to authenticate on super star jerseys, bearing manufactured or contrived team repairs. It is our expert opinion team repairs do not alone make a jersey real or fake.

Now, I do not mean to offend the many collectors that have NFL jerseys exhibiting team repairs. I know they exist, and have a database file of photographed players with visible team repairs. I just want to illustrate that a jersey does not have to have a team repair in order to be considered authentic or having heavy game wear.

If any interested parties would like to further discuss the team repairs vs. non team repairs debate, I would be willing to extend an invitation this spring to the new MEARS Research and Conference Center. Our color plate copies of the NFL jerseys referenced above are available for any interested parties. We can compare your actual jerseys to our referenced color plate examples.

This jersey is manufactured from a tear away material. The design of the material is quite thin and has a transparent appearance. The name is somewhat deceiving, as although thin, the material is quite resistant to tearing. I purchased a King OShea college jersey made from this tear away material. With two of my staffers and me engaged in a tug of war, the jersey did not tear. This is also a similar material to what the Chicago Bears wore at times. I have since conducted numerous research on the tear away material, and I can find no specific reference to the materials being names or marketed as such. It is my belief that the King OShea fabric was of a lighter, but stronger blend and had more to do with perspiration absorption than tearing away. With Papa Bear Halas being notorious frugal, the practice of having jerseys tear away during the course of a game is probably more versed in legend than fact. Nevertheless, this thin type fabric is photographically documented and examples from both the Browns and Bears have entered the hobby. I have not been presented with any proof that these tear away jerseys are expected to tear after each game of use.

Again, I have several of these tear away jerseys available for examination at the new MEARS headquarters and I think you would also be surprised at the actual strength this material contains.

Furthermore, I have 4 or 5 crystal clear image of Jim Brown wearing the tear away style jerseys. None of them show visible signs of team repairs. I do feel that team repairs would show in photos, as we have several examples in our database. These images of Jim Brown can be found in the article.

At the time of the article we addressed the images of Brown as follows:

I have provided a close-up image of Jim Brown wearing a similar tear away jersey. Note how the writing of his T-shirt and shoulder pad markings can be seen through the materials.

Regarding the issue of conflict of interest, both sides of the issue have stated their cases and I do not expect to change any existing opinions. What I do feel is that a high majority of active bidders and collectors do not have issues with MEARS members buying and evaluating their own items. This is illustrated by higher prices realized of MEARS evaluated items, even on the items owned and disclosed as being owned by Dave Bushing.

I also feel that the issue of conflict of interest is unfairly targeted at Dave Bushing as he has agreed to voluntarily disclose what he owns. This is done via the our items at auction section on the MEARS website, and the disclosure line of the items for sale at MEARS For Sale. Rob Lifson also voluntarily listed the ownership of Bushing or Bushing/Kinunen in each lot description. As a consignor, both Dave and I were quite pleased with the results of our consignments in the 2008 REA auction. Each of these lots had our financial interests listed, and we did not feel there were any negative impacts from interested bidders. In some cases, collectors seek out items owned by Dave, so the disclosure process actually helps Dave sell items for higher prices. Authenticators John Taube and Lou Lampson are also dealers that have consigned to auction houses in the past. To my knowledge, they have yet to adopt the full disclosure practice mandated by MEARS, yet they never receive criticism. If the current crop of authenticators are still consigning items they own, the collecting public does not know as I know of no formal method of the identification of these items and the disclosure of their owners. Dave received the criticism, as he was the only person disclosing.

But, I guess if you do not disclose, how can anybody see the self applied target on your back? Next time you receive an item in auction that was authenticated as real or you get a PSA letter with a high grade, it might have been owned by Taube or Lampson, but you will never really know due to the lack of full disclosure policies for these individuals.

At least with Bushing, you can run for the hills when you see an item owned by him with a MEARS A10 grade. Or in the case of the Jim Brown jersey, you can bid aggressively with the exact same knowledge of disclosure and pay a World Record price!

With MEARS, we voluntarily provide you with the disclosure of ownership, give you a worksheet to review, a final letter to review, and a bulletin board to discuss. Although we cant please everyone, we still do alright.

Troy

G1X
Instead of entering into the debate about conflicts of interest, I would like to point out a hidden nugget in this thread that is absolutely invaluable to any football jersey collector who has interests in collecting 20th century football jerseys. This information can be found in post #15 where Joel Alpert quotes Troy Kinunen's post on the MEARS website regarding older football jerseys.

Troy is dead-on in his assessment. I have been very fortunate to have had thousands of game-worn football jerseys go through my hands over the years, and I can attest that my experiences and observations are in total agreement with Mr. Kinunen.

Football jerseys for most of the 20th century were made differently and worn differently than today's jerseys. Modern jerseys are not only designed differently, they are worn very tightly. With this combination, it doesn't take much to damage a modern jersey. Older jerseys were more durable by design, and players tended to wear them more loosely. It took a lot more pulling and tugging, hits, and other similar abuse to create rips and tears.

In my humble opinion, and with all due respect to Troy, labeling the Jim Brown jersey as a tear-away jersey has created a bit of confusion and understandable questioning from some GUU members. Although I have not seen the jersey in person, judging from the photos, it appears to be simply a case where a lighter weight durene was used in manufacturing and not an actual tear-away material. (The above observation is not intended to be interpreted as any type of validation or dismissal of MEARS grading of this jersey.)

For a little background on tear-away jerseys, this style came into prominence around 1970 when college teams such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama started running the wishbone. It didn't take much to destroy a tear-away jersey. Living in Alabama at the time, I was never surprised to see the QB or running backs make several changes during a game. The equipment staff would have extra jerseys tucked in their belts so that they could make quick changes on the sidelines. (The lineman and defensive players normally did not wear tear-aways.)

If the Jim Brown jersey was a true tear-away, Troy's "tugging match" would have turned a very valuable jersey into a couple of strips of cloth!

Troy's very informative and educational observation of older jerseys bears repeating. I beg each football jersey collector out there to read and absorb this golden nugget.

It is often noted that a jersey has to exhibit team repairs to be considered heavily worn. This is not a universal truth and wear can manifest itself in additional visible manners. For example, examine the area of the crotch piece of this jersey. Along the button opening reinforced stitching, you can see areas of fraying. This was caused from the buttoning and unbuttoning of the piece. The game wear is visible when examining the stress and contact marks found on the fabric. This is especially visible when examining the area of the numeral surfaces. The use may be considered light by some when comparing the fabric to a dureene example with visible team repairs, but close examination reveals wear to the overall areas of the fabric of the body shell, crotch piece and numerals.

Over the past 3 years, I have personally handled nearly 300 game used NFL jerseys. I have purchased many of them on Ebay, dealers, and game used forum members. One of the key components I have noticed was the absence of team repairs. Most of these jerseys were of common players. They were purchased with the intentions to obtain fabric samples and color templates for the MEARS archives. After each jersey was archived, many were sold.

By handling such a large random sample, I was able to empirically illustrate that NFL jerseys would have medium to heavy game wear, without team repairs. Some jerseys were found to have team repairs, but I would estimate that less than 10% of the jerseys were found with team repairs. Therefore, with the aid of actual examples, I was able to document that game worn jerseys of common players were found in high percentages (90%) to not have team repairs.

A counter argument is that common players are not superstars, nor running backs, and common players should not have the same amount of game wear as a running back of Brown's calibre. Many of the samples that we examined were of everyday starting lineman, considered common players by collectors standards. These lineman jerseys were worn in every down, yet did not have repairs. It is also interesting to note that on several instances, MEARS issued unable to authenticate on super star jerseys, bearing manufactured or contrived team repairs. It is our expert opinion team repairs do not alone make a jersey real or fake.

Now, I do not mean to offend the many collectors that have NFL jerseys exhibiting team repairs. I know they exist, and have a database file of photographed players with visible team repairs. I just want to illustrate that a jersey does not have to have a team repair in order to be considered authentic or having heavy game wear.

If any interested parties would like to further discuss the team repairs vs. non team repairs debate, I would be willing to extend an invitation this spring to the new MEARS Research and Conference Center. Our color plate copies of the NFL jerseys referenced above are available for any interested parties. We can compare your actual jerseys to our referenced color plate examples.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

lund6771
Mark...I'm looking at this outside the box...

There is fraying around the buttons from buttoning and un-buttoning the crotch piece?....that's how this is deduced as being game worn?...please

Was this jersey matched up against a known to be 100% real Jim Brown from this era? Noone knows beacuse the A10 worksheet says nothing....it reads "moderate use", "no repairs"....hmmmmm, so let's give it an A10, because if we give it a grade less than that, it won't fetch as much....what a bunch of BS...

seeing the conflict of interest yet Joel?

what do you think this jersey would have sold for if Mears would have listed it as Real, but unable to be 100% certain if it was worn on the field....like an A5 or so....half at best?

You talk about how Mears is so revolutionary....are all of the fake jerseys that have a grading of A5 revolutionary?....

until Mears decided that they were going to be an auction house, I don't think that you can make a comparison with GFC, Mastro, AMI, etc...Mears WAS an authenticator and the others are auction houses....but now that they are an auction house, they can grade everything an A10 so that they can squeeze every last penny out of the collector with their system

G1X
lund6771, My post was not intended to validate the Jim Brown jersey, but rather to point out a very educational piece of information about older football jerseys stated by Troy Kinunen that was buried in post #15. I have not seen the Jim Brown jersey in person or held it in my hands, so I have no comment about its authenticity. That was the purpose of my disclaimer at the end of the fourth paragraph in my previous post.

I was simply intending to make a point about 20th century football jerseys in general, not the Jim Brown jersey in question. In my 34 years of rambling around this hobby, this seems to be an area of collecting that is poorly understood by most collectors.

All I am trying to do is share information from my experiences with those who are willing to listen and learn.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

nyjetsfan14
Greetings Mark, long time no chat. I hope this post finds you in good health and spirits. I trust you are enjoying a very successful Falcons season thus far.

I was leaning towards letting the well knowns air this one out but when I saw your post I decided to throw my hat in the ring as it is always a rewarding exchange when we interact regarding football collecting. While I understand most on this forum (and off) are unfamiliar with me, my Jets collection, and my experience/knowledge of Jets uniform traits I think you know a little bit about me. I personally authenticate all Jets pieces I purchase/trade for and put no stock in any third party authenticators and/or their documentation when it comes to Jets items (not saying that as a slight against any particular person rather I just prefer to do and trust my own research). If and when I have any doubts/questions about a Jets piece that I cannot answer with my extensive Jets library and resources I confer with a fellow Jets collector/friend who happens to be a respected member of this forum. I unfortunately have seen more misauthenticated (yes I am aware I may have just made up a word) Jets items for auction than I care to discuss.

With that being said, I was a bit taken aback when you agreed with the authenticator that 90 plus percent of legitimate vintage game worn AFL or NFL jerseys will demonstrate no team instituted repairs. This is absolutely positively not the case with New York Jets jerseys from the AFL or early merger era. Even most common Jets player jerseys from that particular era more often than not (that could be anywhere from 51% to 49% and up) will exhibit use to include team repairs (of course obviously a players position, type of playing style, and amount of playing time will have a dynamic impact on percentages). If someone offered me say a Matt Snell NY Jets AFL or early merger era game worn jersey that had no team repairs and tried to insinuate that it was in fact a perfect example of a Matt Snell jersey from said era, that would be a laughable scenario and an insult to my collecting knowledge. I would be further insulted if they tried to tell me good wear was shown via the crotch piece with evidence of numerous buttonings and unbuttonings. I am in no way saying that a jersey of such a player as Matt Snell displaying no team repairs would or could not have belonged to/been issued for/or used by Matt Snell nor am I saying that the crotch piece wear should not be taken into consideration but to give it a label of perfect example or A10 or whatever else someone might want to call it is just not correct in my mind. While undoubtedly there would be a percentage of jerseys from said era that might not exhibit team repairs (the approximate percentage could be debated I am sure and factors as mentioned above would come into play) I find it nearly impossible to fathom that 90 or more out of 100 jerseys of players who played significant time during that era would exhibit use without team repairs, to me that is irresponsible writing solely dedicated to selling a particular item.

When we talk about perfect examples or A10's it would only stand to reason that we expect the piece to be positively the premeire example of a jersey from that player. If we are talking about a perfect example of a Jan Stenereud game worn jersey that would more than likely be a jersey with no team instituted repairs but when we are talking about a Jim Brown game worn jersey, who was clearly one of the more physical runners to ever put on shoulder pads, I just don't feel a jersey of his without team repairs but with crotch piece wear would warrant a "perfect" label or A10. I think it was the grade awarded considering the above that really stirred the conflict of interset pot.

Before we annoint pieces with LOA's, grade numbers, worksheets, expert opinions, etc...
http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_f...ad.php?t=18550

Thanks for hearing me out Mark. All the best and enjoy the rest of the NFL season. Happy collecting to all and may everyone have a warm and safe Thanksgiving!

RKGIBSON
First, I think the whole authentication field is a joke, a big rip off. The only impact any of them have had on this hobby is negative. I would think their mission is to deem a item real or not? I would like for them to admit they are not really interested is saying that a item is real or not, they are just interested in getting paid for every item that is submitted. A5 to me means that there is a 50/50 chance it is real. Its a score not a authentication. I would think that making your opinion something that is understandable and something that is not open to interpetation would be a goal if you really know what you are talking about. I would bet that most of their customers are dealers that are hoping to use their smoke and mirrors grading system to trick some unknowledgable person out of a few more bucks.

Joel, you seem to be the mouth piece for MEARS here. A couple questions;
How does any jersey that has a photo match not get the highest score? It is proven real, right?

How can any jersey that has no provenace, or photo match, get the highest score? Recieving the highest score should be reserved for a item that there is absolutely no doubt it is real, right?

I do not know any of the guys at MEARS. I would guess that each has a lot of knowledge on somethings and not much on others. Collectively they have a lot of knowledge. I would guess that to properly evaluate a Jim Brown jersey you would have had to have had one, that was known to be real, to compare to and proof that Brown wore this one, in order to render a opinion that this is perfect. It is true that general knowledge of Browns jerseys from this era could be obtained by looking at common player jerseys. I would think that if absolute accuracy was their goal in evaluating, potentially, one of the most significate jerseys in existance, the highest score would only be awarded if there was absolutely no doubt. If getting the most money out of a item was the goal, the scrutiny might be less.

Roger

G1X
Hi Matt, First and foremost, I feel the need to once again emphasize that my posts in this thread have nothing to do with MEARS grading system or the Jim Brown jersey. That issue continues to be brought up in the responses to my posts. I have no comment or opinion on the Jim Brown jersey as clearly stated in my last post as I have never seen this jersey in person or held it in my hands. I also have never given the MEARS grading system much thought as I simply do not depend on such when making purchase decision.

Let me also repeat a statement from my last post that seems to have been overlooked - "I was simply intending to make a point about 20th century football jerseys in general, not the Jim Brown jersey in question. In my 34 years of rambling around this hobby, this seems to be an area of collecting that is poorly understood by most collectors. All I am trying to do is share information from my experiences with those who are willing to listen and learn."

The key words here are "in general". I have no doubt that the Jets jerseys from the 1960s that you have seen and owned show great use and repairs. And others in the hobby may have had similar experiences in what they collect. But while you are mainly a Jets collector and expert, Troy is seeing a wide variety of jerseys from virtually every team and league. He has a much wider sampling to observe than the average collector.

As for me, I have had thousands of jerseys go through my hands over the years simply by the virtue of being in the hobby for a very long time. I have also been fortunate to view major inventories of other dealers and several large personal collections. Being a dealer myself, I have had access to a lot more jerseys and a wider variety than the average collector. For example, I have bought out nearly an entire league (WLAF) consisting of over 500 jerseys, and have made team bulk buys through the years with the largest being close to 800 jerseys. This has given me the opportunity to see a lot of jerseys.

This doesn't make me or Troy any smarter than anyone else, it simply means that we have seen and studied a whole lot of stuff and have a fairly good idea of how many repaired jerseys we've seen in a very large sampling. I am certainly not discounting you or anyone else's experiences as we all have to go on what we've seen.

Regardless of all of that, after reading your post, I thought that the 90% figure might be a bit ambitious. So, I went downstairs and wandered through my personal collection and notes. I tried to come up with a variety of items. Here is what I found:

32 various NFL durene jerseys, 19 had no repairs - 59%
50 mesh Atlanta Falcons jerseys (1973 to 1999), 40 had no repairs - 80%
33 WFL jerseys (1974 & '75), 30 had no repairs - 91%
15 various NFL jerseys (players from UAB), 13 had no repairs - 87%
22 UAB jerseys (players who went on to the NFL), 20 had no repairs - 91%

In the 1990s, I purchased 521 jerseys directly from the WLAF from the league's first two seasons (1991 & '92). I made handwritten notes on each of the jerseys. In looking at those notes, 500 of the jerseys had no repairs - 96%

In my overall sampling of 673 jerseys, 91.5% did not have team repairs. It's not that these 673 sampled jerseys don't show nice use (some have holes, rips, runs, etc.), it's simply a matter that most do not have actual repairs.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

nyjetsfan14
To start off Mark I appreciate your experiences and knowledge combined with your willingness to share. As it pertains to your figures we can throw out everything but the first line as the rest isn't in the topic of discussion for this thread. So we'll go with your 59% (assuming they are from the era of our discussion). Then, as noted in my first post, it would behoove us to further break it down by position as of course kicker & QB jerseys are much less likely to exhibit repairs. Then we would have to eliminate players who never or rarely touched the field. I stand by my assessment that if we are looking at position players who actually played from the 50's and on into the 60's that 90+ percent of those jerseys not exhibiting team instituted repairs is just not even in the same area code as realistic. Again, that doesn't rule out a jersey as being legit but in a case where a player had a brutal style of play at a position where contact is constantly absorbed an A10 or perfect rating is absurd (I understand you are not making any statements on any particular piece). You can't possibly tell me that if you came across a Falcons Junior Coffey gamer that you would expect it to have no team instituted repairs or that you would feel as confident as you would with a Coffey jersey exhibiting team repairs? We can play numbers games all evening but it really comes down to a matter of common sense.

G1X
Matt, I think that we might not be on the same page. I was speaking of 20th century jerseys in general. The mid-1970s WFL jerseys and 1991-92 WLAF jerseys are 20th century as are 1973-1999 Falcons and late 1990s UAB jerseys, so they can't be eliminated in supporting my statement. Nor can the thousands and thousands of other jerseys I've held in my hand. Nor can all of the jerseys that Troy Kinunen has observed and recorded.

All we are trying to do is share information based on what we have observed.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

Number9
Mark, Fascinating factual numbers, thanks for sharing. Mike

kingjammy24
jim, matt, mark, et al.,

despite not being a football collector, i've been enjoying your discussion regarding team repairs and the brown jersey.

a couple of questions popped up for me, regarding the brown jersey. i'd appreciate your insight. it seems that some feel that the lack of team repairs on the brown jersey is a red flag. to my layman's sensibilities, in judging the brown jersey, i wonder if there's been a step missed. from what i can tell, the jersey's been described as having light use. even without considering team repairs, shouldn't such a shirt exhibit heavy use? that is, i'm sure it's possible for a football jersey to show heavy use without having any team repairs. even if we forget the entire issue of team repairs for a minute, ought there be other substantial signs of use for such a shirt? would the absense of heavy use on such a shirt be a red flag? mastro notes that "There are no team repairs, suggesting short-term overall usage most likely during the hot weather of early season games". i've seen some modern RB football gamers that were only used for a couple of games and they appeared hammered to all hell. even if the brown shirt were only worn for a few "early season games" and didn't necessitate any team repairs, should there not be substantially more use?

i've read both the REA and Mastro descriptions of the jersey. the Mastro description notes "light surface stress marks to the numbers". i'm not sure if this refers to the "folds" in the numbers but if it does, in my experience with baseball shirts, there's a noticeable difference between wash wear on numbers (puckering) and the folds that occur simply when the jersey is crumpled/folded up. i've left many jerseys folded up and they show the exact same types of "folds/stress marks" that are seen on the brown jersey. upon looking at a closeup of one of the numbers, it's clear that the folds really are caused by folds in the shirt and not by any sort of use.



perhaps the folds aren't what mastro is referring to when the refer to the "stress marks" though. at any rate, if the numbers had encountered use that resulted in stress marks, would it be a reasonable expectation that some of the threads on these numbers be torn?

anyway, thanks in advance for humoring a layman.

rudy.

G1X
Rudy, Football jerseys for most of the 20th century were made differently and worn differently than today's jerseys. Modern jerseys are not only designed differently (with some being highly customized for the individual player), they are worn very tightly. With this combination, it doesn't take much to damage a modern jersey.

Older jerseys were more durable by design, and players tended to wear them more loosely. You rarely see special customization as most durene jerseys were sort of "box" cut and not tapered. It took a lot more pulling and tugging, hits, and other similar abuse to create rips and tears.

Hope this information is helpful.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

aeneas01
although i know virtually nothing about jerseys, i've always found game used vintage jerseys to be absolutely stunning - in my next life i will most likely opt for vintage jerseys over vintage lids, much easier to store and hide from the wife!

as far as the jb jersey is concerned, troy mentioned that he's personally handled over "300" jerseys in the past three years and has found that just 10% or so exhibit team repairs. first of all, "300" jerseys strikes me as a rather small reference sample - especially considering that mears has been presented to the sport memorabilia collecting public as a "research center". i'm not trying to be flippant here, i just think that this point is worth mentioning because a "research center" implies, at least to me, access to an extraordinary number of exemplars.

second, wouldn't any sample be rather meaningless unless the bulk of the examples were from the era in question? according to saleem choudhry (football hall of fame head researcher, 20+ years) who i spoke with on monday, vintage jerseys in the hall's possession from the jim brown era were recycled frequently and were prone to show team repairs and runs. in short, mr. choudhry's comments seemed to support exactly what forum member nyjetsfans14 stated earlier in this thread. anyway, i can't help but wonder if a sample of 300 jerseys from the late 50s & early 60s, used by starting rbs, lbs and linemen, would yield the same findings, the same 10% result.

btw, are there many photos or film footage available of jim brown actually wearing this sort of lightweight jersey in a game? there are clearly many promotional/portrait/program photos of jb posing in such a jersey but i've had no luck finding a photo (or film frame from my nfl films dvd collection) of him actually wearing such a jersey while in action. granted, i have not conducted an exhaustive search nor do i have a keen eye for for jerseys. but nonetheless i thought i would have quickly come across at least a few obvious game examples.

could it be that this jersey is something jb only wore during photo sessions, football card photo shoots, promotional shots, etc.? or could it even be a salesman sample - something a king o'shea sales rep proudly showed to nfl equipment managers around the league while boasting "jim wears a king o'shea"? if none of these scenarios can be conclusively ruled out, how can it be conclusively determined that the jersey was game worn given what appears to be light use?

as far as grading is concerned, the mears webite (for sale section) features several jerseys that fall into the salesman sample (jim covert), photo shoot (mario williams), game issued (derrick gainer) and lightly worn (blair kiel) categories. obviously none of these jerseys graded out at an a10 - but i wonder how the limited game use and light wear the kiel jersey exhibits (per mears's description) compares to the jb jersey. i'm sure such limited game use and light wear factored into the a5 the kiel was awarded, no? and weren't other jerseys graded by mears penalized points due to limited game use and wear? i believe there were a couple of threads discussing this some time ago. further, assuming two virtually identical jim brown jerseys (tags, etc.), would the one with a couple of team repairs and slightly greater wear score higher or lower than the one without repairs and lesser wear?

regarding the research conducted on this jersey, it's apparent that troy has studied the jersey - but were any other jersey experts consulted? specifically, were jersey experts that have extensive experience with jerseys from this era consulted? as i mentioned, on monday i spoke with saleem choudhry of the pro football hall of fame - among other things i asked him if the hall would ever assist a collector in determining a rare piece's authenticity, if someone could make an appointment to meet with a hall researcher to discuss the item and to compare it to exemplars in the hall's possession. mr. choudhry responded "absolutely". amazingly, mr. choudhry also told me that the hall is rarely, if ever, approached with such requests - he went on to say that those that contact the hall's research department almost always are seeking the hall's assistance in determining an item's value, not the likelihood of the item's authenticity. btw the hall will not assist collectors with an item's potential value! anyway after speaking with mr. choudhry i couldn't help but wonder if perhaps mears had approached the hall, had visited the hall to speak with their researchers and to examine their rather impressive inventory - especially considering that the hall also boasts three jim brown gamers. would this be an effort that a collector might expect from a "research center"? again, i'm not being flippant - it's an honest question.

here are a few photos showing jim brown sporting well worn, torn and/or repaired jerseys. is it at all possible that any of these jerseys, assuming they made into the collecting world and were photo matched, would score lower than an a10, lower than the mears jersey? let's say they weren't photo matched but were conclusively determined to be authenic jb gamers - is there any chance they would score below an a10? if so, how could this be possible? further, how could the mears jersey score an a10 if these jerseys existed? is it the absence of such jerseys that allows mears to score their jersey an a10?







and, for the heck of it, here are a few "non jim brown" vintage beauties from the pro football hall of fame...







kingjammy24
1) light use: i think "light use" is entirely appropriate (ie: ideal) on some jerseys and wholly inappropriate on others. i passed on bidding on a certain jersey in a recent AMI auction because the wear was too heavy. that is, it seemed disproportionate to the time the player had spent on the team that season. in considering mark's rollie fingers shirt and this brown shirt, one would think that if light wear were appropriate for one jersey and not the other it'd be on the fingers and not on the brown. apparently, mears felt differently. mark hayne brought up the fact that apparently older football shirts were able to take more a beating. i'd think the brown shirt would still show something though? for a shirt of this magnitude, now offered from 2 premier auction houses, both descriptions have only mentioned the crotch piece wear.

2) from the REA description: "The offered jersey is not only the first Jim Brown game jersey we have ever seen.. but is also the only example ever seen by MEARS or documented in the MEARS population report...This is the only documented Jim Brown jersey known to date"

the first jim brown shirt MEARS has ever seen and noone from MEARS spoke to the Football HOF, who have 3 in their possession? this strikes me as really, really odd. a $70k shirt and a phone call can't be made to an institution that has 3 of what you have none of? wierd, wacky stuff as johnny c. would say.

3) promo items and salesman's samples have long posed concerns for collectors of all niches. i'm not sure how king o'shea worked back in the day but i'm curious if the promo item route was explored and if so, what sorts of conclusions were reached. it seems saleman's samples would be most common around the time that a given team is either undergoing a redesign or entertaining the notion of changing from it's current supplier. in 1996, the jays gave russell a try for their home jerseys from their main supplier wilson who'd they'd been using since 1977. i imagine around '96, russell made a few samples that led to wooing the jays away from wilson.
and of course, teams have been known to make up promo shirts for things like photo shoots and charity donations. not sure how common that was with the browns in the 60s.

rudy.

G1X
Now to the issue that most of us durene collectors don't like to think about. Not only were jerseys often recycled back in those days (they still are today, by the way), many were later reused in practice. Did the repairs come from game action or did they come from practice/camp use? So the next time you get all excited about those 17 repairs on your favorite durene jersey, you might want to think about how many resulted from a couple of years of practice and summer camp!

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

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